Greenock look to earn win at Prestwick

Greenock 1st XI make the trip down the coast on Saturday to play Prestwick in what is another vital match for them. They need to put last weekend's agonising defeat to West of Scotland behind them and concentrate on getting the win points this week.

The Premier Division table shows that Greenock have slipped into one of the two relegation positions and it would appear that they may well need to record two more wins from their remaining six matches if they wish to avoid the drop. Dumfries were the beneficiaries of last week's results, gaining 25 points from their win over Prestwick while both Greenock and Ayr failed to pick up any points in their defeats.

The way that the bonus points system currently works makes it possible for a team to be comfortably beaten but gain possibly 5 or 7 points while a close game can bring no points at all. Designing a system that is fair to all sides has proved nigh on impossible over many years but surely there is a better solution than the one in use this season.

WDCU CSL Premier Division Table (as at 14 July)

Last Saturday's game with West of Scotland produced a dramatic finish when the winning run was scored by West after a straightforward catch was dropped but there is no point in dwelling on 'if onlys'. What matters now is the next game. Having said that, lessons can be learnt from that defeat. The most important of these is the need to bat out the full 50 overs. This has been a constant failing of Greenock over recent seasons and is something which they seem incapable of eradicating. Last week, 65 deliveries were given up. How many more runs could have been scored off them? If they had, what a difference that would have made to the eventual outcome.

If that is a criticism that can be levelled at the team, then it is only fair to balance that with their admirable desire to fight to the very end of the game to secure the win and the players deserve great credit for that. It is something that will need to be shown in the remaining games but what happened last Saturday surely demonstrated to the players what is possible. Skipper Neil Flack led from the front with his bowling and he can take heart from the backing he received from his team.

Prestwick were worthy winners of the Premier Division last year but they have struggled to defend their title this season and currently sit in 4th position in the table, having won six of their eleven games to date. While their side is more or less the same as last year, they have lacked consistency this term.

However, they do possess a number of players who on their day can win any match. Chief amongst that number is Sachin Chaudhary who has always performed well against Greenock with both bat and ball for firstly Irvine and now Prestwick. He is currently the leading wicket-taker in the Premier Division with 24 victims at the impressive average of 11.46. Fazal Jawad, Fraser Macdonald and Tom Fleet have all scored runs at some point this season while Mitchell Rao has blossomed into a fine all-round player and has earned international recognition.

Greenock, for their part, have players that Prestwick will be wary of. Saurabh Bandekar and Neil Flack are both in the top 10 run-scorers in the Division, the former with 333 runs and the latter 309. Flack is also the second highest wicket-taker, his 22 victims being just two behind Chaudhary. If these two can maintain this level of form and get solid backing from the rest of the team, then Greenock can be a match for any side in the Division.

Team selection for the match shows that yet again, there are a number of the first team pool who are unavailable this week, something which Flack believes has made it difficult to maintain consistent performances. Harry Briggs, Jonathan Hempsey, Shailesh Prabhu and Jack Griffiths are definitely missing this week. Hempsey's all -round ability in particular will be a considerable loss to the team. However, his brother Chris returns after his finger injury and also available again is Sean Fischer-Keogh. The latter is a real prospect for the future and this has been underlined by the fact that he has achieved selection for the Scotland Under-15 team, an achievement that has been warmly welcomed by everyone at Glenpark.

The match at the Henry Thow Oval at Prestwick will start at 12 noon and although there has been some rain this week, the ground conditions will still be the same as in recent weeks with a fast outfield and a dry pitch. Just how the pitch will play is the unknown as a number of grounds in the west, including Glenpark, have in recent weeks presented conditions that have proved challenging to batsmen. But whatever they face, Greenock must look to win this game and to do so they will need all eleven players to be at their best.

The Glenpark XI are at home on Saturday to Motherwell, who currently top the Third Division table with an 100% record. This will clearly be a very stiff task for the Glenparkers as their opponents are a team that is full of run-scorers as witnessed by the fact that they scored 345 for 3 against Glenpark earlier in the season. The Glenpark bowlers know what is ahead of them! The selected team is the usual mixture of the young and the mature. The match starts at 1pm.

Greenock Cricket Club is sponsored this season by Cleaning Supplies 4U.